Sky Safari Cable Cart, Taronga Zoo, Sydney, Australia

This form of transportation
allows visitors to get an aerial view of the

zoo. A round
trip ride on this cable car is included in the zoo’s general
admissions ticket.

Sky Safari travels from the
lower entrance of Taronga Zoo

near the Ferry wharf to the
top entrance of the zoo’s plaza.

With good weather (meaning
winds are not too strong), the

Sky Safari operates from 9:30
a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Access is restricted during unfavorable
winds and peak seasons.

The Sky Safari in Taronga Zoo
is operated by Skyrail-ITM,

an Australian company in Cairns,
Queensland.

They also provided the cable car service for the
Skyrail Rainforest Cableway in Cairns.

Cable cars in History:

January 17, 1871 – Andrew
Smith Hallidie, a native of San Francisco in the United
States, patented the very first cable car. He invented
thisdevice after witnessing five horses dragged to
their death after slipping off steep and wet
cobblestones while trying to drag a streetcar.With a
purpose to eliminate the need for horses to transport
passengers to and from San Francisco’s notoriously steep
streets, Hallidie, with financial backing, started work
on the steam powered cable car. With the aid of steel
ropes, Hallidie invented a mechanism that would pull
cars with a seemingly endless cable

August 1, 1873 – The very
first cable car ride was taken at 5:00 a.m. by a handful
of nervous men with the mechanism controlled by Hallidie
himself. They arrived down safely. After this historical
event, cable cars began to define San Franciscan life in
the city

April 10, 1878 – The
California Street Cable Railroad Company was
established.

February 1880 – The tail
end of the 19th century saw the opening of two more
cable car companies: Geary Street and Park and Ocean
Railroad.

1881 – Inspired by the
reception of the United States to cable car technology,
Dunedin, New Zealand opens its own cable car company.

January 1882 – To the
delight of its residents, Chicago opens its own local
cable car system. So does the Union Street Line.

April 18, 1906 – The Great
Earthquake that San Francisco damaged its cable cars and
paved the way for street car service.

1920s – With the success
of the cable car system in San Francisco, most of the
United States had started to opt for electrically
powered cars as opposed to horse-drawn ones.